Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → TheHansinator
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | Wizard Heist | jam | 704 | 3.40 | 3.47 | 2.70 | 3.17 | 3.65 | 3.65 | 3.23 | 3.50 | |
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | 👥 | Vesuvius | jam | 3.25 | 2.83 | 3.25 | 3.83 | 3.25 | 3.58 | 4.00 | 3.33 | |
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | Operation Un-Stable | compo | 174 | 3.68 | 3.88 | 3.20 | 3.77 | 3.54 | 3.75 | 3.75 | 3.47 | |
| 2017 | 38 | A Small World | Slime Highways | compo | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 |
You weren't kidding! I love the way the little climbers jostle and knock down the tower - they totally look like ants. I _think_ I have the right strategy - pick the right stones and build a tower straight up, yes? I assume that the rules are set up in such a way to make building a pyramid not work, since too many guys die from fall damage before it gets tall enough.
Couldn't find a download link either
The controls felt rather unresponsive - I was able to move and shoot well enough, but punching often didn't respond, which in turn made it difficult to rotate the stage properly and reach the orb. I also found the orb didn't do anything when I picked it up - is it supposed to? I do like the mechanics and design, though!
@ildenh Thank you! The idea just kinda hit me like a truck when I saw the Twitter post. Originally I was also going to put cows or other horses in the stables, so that you would also be "unstabling" them. I imagine you could also make something more pensive with that pun, like a teen setting a childhood horse free in the middle of the night or something.
@fabernull @butterkatt @marc-grabow @retrospecter @turncoda Thank you! I had a lot of fun putting the music and VFX together. Funnily enough this was my first time writing music for a game - for everything else I've done, either another team member wrote music or I just didn't have any. I'm glad PICO-8 has such a friendly sequencer.
Really nice job on this! Loving the Asteroids aesthetic and physics, and I think the application of using the physics to transport boxes is really cool. Nice job on the audio, too. There's something really ominous about the drop points, both with the sound they make and with (or was this just me?) the way that the level changes after dropping something off. Plus with the way they eat you too.
Something funny about the CRT effects: I will be a bit of that "um, akschually" guy and point out that an Asteroids cabinet would have the CRT bend but would not have raster scanlines, since the electron gun is being controlled by software like a LOGO pen. However, they still did a great job of providing that nostalgic look and I didn't even realize it wasn't technically accurate until I wrote this review. Perhaps they also trigger that "creepy VHS/security camera footage" look?
@turncoda You're welcome! I'll admit that my knowledge of this is rather limited and comes from a combination of playing vector cabinets a small handful of times, and a YouTube video explaining how the vector generator works (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smStEPSRKBs).
Hey, another stable pun person! I love the horse's dialogue - he has definitely gotten up and chosen violence today.
This made me laugh. :) It seems a little unforgiving how close you have to be to the WiFi for it to work, but the game was enjoyable otherwise. I love the little touch of having the green and red portraits on both the HUD and on the character's laptop.
Cute little game! I'm liking the RTS-lite vibes I'm getting, and the drawings and audio are quite pleasant and do their job well.
Question: am I supposed to be able to pan the camera? I noticed that you had a screenshot of the center of the battlefield, but when I was playing in the Web version, clicking on the map or pressing any of the keys didn't do anything to show me past my base. The buttons were also in front of some of my cells, so I wasn't able to click on those cells.
Love the concept here! It took a little bit to get used to the controls until I realized that they were like Super Monkey Ball, where everything moves. And there's some really interesting puzzles done with it, too!
Wow, you did a great job! Loved the haunting feeling you give with the audio - headphones definitely recommended! :)
Agree that it would be nice to have something else to do while waiting for emails - perhaps being able to reply to the other two senders? It might also be interesting to leverage the "balancing act" aspect between the emails and bomb defusing a little more by forcing the player to move away from the bomb to get reception, especially since they wouldn't be able to manage the "needy" module at the same time.
Game seems to end really fast - it looks like it ends as soon as everyone has gathered at least 1 gold? It at least causes the games with AI in them to end in less than 20 seconds.
Had a lot of fun with this one! The teacher's voice really carries it, including him just yelling "WRONG!" at you. Graphics were nice too - reminded me of Reigns.
Got an error at the start of the "The Sky Is Falling" event:
TypeError: AudioListener.setPosition: Argument 1 is not a finite floating-point value. _JS_Sound_SetListenerPosition@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/4548963/Build/Builds.framework.js.gz:2:52259 @https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/4548963/Build/Builds.wasm.gz:wasm-function[3825]:0x19af0f ...
I'll note that Player 1 had fallen off the edge, if this matters.
Very cute. :) I love the boss's bloodshot eyes when he's staring at you.
Noice, a touch typing game! Fits perfectly with the unstable reactor idea. I also love the little poses the guy goes into as you press each button.
That was really nice! The music choice was lovely, and I like the idea of bringing it in tune. Even as someone who grew up tuning their own violin, I appreciate the assist features for those who aren't as musically inclined.
Thanks also for making a Linux build!
Thank you guys for your feedback! I'm glad you've been enjoying this.
To respond to individual bits:
> The sounds, visuals, even gameplay are extremely reminiscent of the old classic 8-bit style. I think you captured it perfectly. Even the funny looking character you play as. Really really nice. The game was responsive, clear, to the point. I liked the ambiance, I enjoyed searching the map for the treasures, really really good.
Thank you! :smile: I'll say [PICO-8](https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php) helped a lot with this - most of its natural restrictions make writing for it akin to writing for a Game Boy Color or SEGA Game Gear.
> I didn’t notice a timer, and I don’t think the wizard appeared every 10 seconds for me.
My intent was not that the wizard would come to your room every 10 seconds, but that the player had to move to a new room every 10 seconds - the timer for this is in the top left corner. Admittedly not the most precise execution of the theme, and I could make the timer a little more visible than it currently is.
> The second is that the wizard was REALLY hard to escape once you were in a room with him. @jonmerrin / but it’s a quit difficult to escape from him @kokkakniphon
Yeah, I could make this situation better. I will say that it's more or less the intention that facing the wizard is certain death - yes, you can escape him if you're lucky, but you would really prefer to not encounter him in the first place. The two things in the game that currently mitigate this are (1) you _are_ slightly faster than he is, and (2) the message "BEWARE THE WIZARD" appears when you're close by, so you can either go around or wait for him to continue on his patrol route. I think I'll improve these in a future release, maybe by giving better cues (such as changing this message to "THE WIZARD IS NEAR"), requiring a bit more for the wizard to start attacking (such as needing line of sight), or by allowing the player to turn the tables on the wizard somehow.
> Maybe you could add a mechanic that does not allow to revisit rooms. Probably by giving each room a countdown that does not reset when going to another one. @stmatn
I actually considered this idea! I ended up deciding that the game would be too difficult if you only got 10 seconds total per room, but that 30 seconds or so per room would be within reason. This kinda drifts away from the theme, but is worth considering outside of that.
Fellow PICO-8er here!
Unfortunately I couldn't get another player to play this with me, but I like what you did, from what I was able to try! The UI is really clever too - I like how you use the light and dark colors to show balls in the air vs. balls available to throw.
Hilarious, simple, gets the message across. Well done! :)
Fun little game! I love the way you use the minigames to create a sort of rhythm, kind of like the Warioware games. Would definitely love more of them!
Great concept! I loved traditional rogue-likes growing up, and I think this is a great way to put the concept into a deck builder. Integrating it with the "every 10 seconds" theme also gives it a nice rhythm that I can vibe with, though I imagine you might want to give the player as much time as they want to arrange their cards if the game situations get more complex.
A dynamic I didn't really like was how segmented the rooms were - it's impossible to see into adjacent rooms without moving into them, and orcs aren't active when you're not in their rooms. Because of this, when I cleared rooms, I would end up just playing the cards I wanted and slowly inch in exactly the directions I wanted to go. When I was fighting orcs, I would play additional cards in an attempt to dance around them, but when I was alone, moving felt a bit tedious.
It would be cool to see more card variety. I think that move=melee attack works perfectly, since that's how traditional roguelikes and Crypt of the Necrodancer work, but you could probably include other interesting movement and attack options, such as diagonal movement and ranged spells. As for having cards that are more powerful than what's in your starting deck, I could see cards getting dropped by monsters when you kill them, and have a "Pay Day"-like card that increases the loot rarity if you kill an enemy with your next attack.
10/10, gave me serious indigestion. My girlfriend wants me to add that I felt like Anthony Bourdain the whole time. :stuck_out_tongue:
The QWOP mechanics are an excellent touch, and I appreciate the different levels too - I didn't manage to get seconds for the breakfast and hot dog levels, but I got plenty from the fancy restaurant and from Charles Entertainment Cheese.
I love the vibe - the environment reminds me a bit of the Trapper boss fight in _Inscryption_.
I think the game would be a lot more fun if we played on top of a game of Go instead of checkers. As is, since checkers is a game about removing pieces over time, the current strategy is to wait for just one checker to move and then go for the necromancer as fast as possible - after a few pieces vanish, you're both more or less at the mercy of the ghosts. On the other hand, since Go tends to add pieces over time, you start out with a small amount of area (perhaps one where you can have a ranged battle with the necromancer), then you can go in for melee attacks as the game progresses and more pieces get added, and pieces can still be removed and fall out from under you if captures occur. The ghosts wouldn't even need to be all that great at Go for this to work.